Thanks fredk, the official route map is great. However, I don't see any difference in the slope of the two valleys. So does anyone understand why we couldn't go down Marathon valley to the bottom and we can this new valley?

My impression - without a direct link to the mission team - is that the rover will not go all the way to the bottom until it reaches the gulley area. Where we are now the valleys slope down until they reach areas with too much loose debris on them, making a climb back up very uncertain. So they can go up and down as targets present themselves, to a certain point but not beyond.

Would it be possible for someone to do a version of this map that shows the gulley that is the goal of this extended mission?

The location of the gully doesn't appear to be covered by that map, but big THANKS to Sean who has made it easy and indeed delicious fun for us to explore certain areas in high resolution by sharing his Sketchfab projects. Here's an excerpt from that showing (1) approx sol4488 and (2) that bright dome and (3) the presumptive gulley, further detailed in Post #314 of the Marathon Valley thread (IPBoard cross-thread linking doesn't seem to work)I'd venture a guess Oppy will traverse at various elevations along the ridge distracted by ad-hoc targets as it makes its way south to (presumed) gully.

Wharton Ridge... do we know where the name comes from? I'm thinking it may commemorate Robert A. Wharton of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, who died on 19 September 2012. He conducted research on Antarctic ice-covered lakes with similarities to possible environments on early Mars.

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